NPR’s “The Diane Rehm Show” is an excellent barometer. Each day Ms. Rehm interviews figures from the commanding heights of the Washington establishment. Elected officials, Pentagon officers, foundation grunts, academics, media personalities and reporters, and the diplomatic corps all pass through her studio. Syria was the focus of Ms. Rehm’s first hour on 17 August. […]
Geography Archives: Americas
South America, Central America, United States & Canada
London’s Most Wanted
“Wanted for Terrorism” Victor Nieto is a cartoonist in Venezuela. His cartoons frequently appear in Aporrea and Rebelión among other sites. Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi (@yoshiefuruhashi | yoshie.furuhashi [at] gmail.com). Cf. “David Cameron Back Councils Planning to Evict Rioters” (BBC, 12 August 2011); “[F]or the press and the western governments, those demonstrating in British, Greek, […]
Syrians Tweet Back to Obama
After US President Barack Obama declared on 18 August 2011: “For the sake of the Syrian people, the time has come for President Assad to step aside.” . . . Haneen Khaddour (18 August 2011): “Here we go again #american intervention. No one wants you in #syria” Sate (18 August 2011): “Ya’ aha Obama. So […]
Shorter Weeks, Longer Vacations
The United States is suffering the enduring effects of a collapsed housing bubble, not a financial crisis. This is an important distinction, because it points to the necessity of relying on shorter workweeks and longer vacations to return to full employment. The financial crisis is largely irrelevant to the economy’s current weakness. The problem is […]
The “Debt Crisis” Myth
The prevailing understanding of economic troubles in the U.S. and Europe, the world’s two largest economies, is mistaken in a number of ways. First: Imagine that you are driving a car down a road packed with snow and ice and you are worried about an accident. At the same time you are ignoring the fact […]
A First Ever Default? Closing the Gold Window, Forty Years On
During the recent “Debt Ceiling” debacle, many warned that the failure to lift the debt ceiling would lead to a “first ever” US default and to numerous financial catastrophes, including the demise of the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency. “First Ever Default?” Think again. Forty years ago this month, on August 15, 1971, […]
Bounce in Core Energy Prices Lead to 0.5 Percent Rise in CPI
The Consumer Price Index rose 0.5 percent in July, following a 0.2 percent fall in June. Over the last three months, headline inflation has run at a 1.8 percent annualized rate, compared with 6.2 percent from January to April. Consumer prices less food and energy rose 0.2 percent last month. Since April, these core prices […]
Venezuela and Iran to Raise Levels of Coordination at OPEC in View of Financial Crisis
Communiqué The president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Comandante Hugo Chávez, communicated by telephone with the president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in the afternoon of the 15th of August, 2011. President Ahmadinejad said to President Chávez that, in this sacred month of Ramadan, he and millions of Iranians are praying […]
Labor’s Defeat in Wisconsin and the Specter of 2012
On March 9, 2011 Republicans at the state capitol in Madison, Wisconsin approved Governor Scott Walker’s bill ending most collective bargaining rights for union-organized state employees. The capitol had been occupied for over a month by unionists, students, and their supporters who were opposed to the bill. This was the first mass labor upsurge of […]
Looking Back for Insights into a New Paradigm
It is becoming widely acknowledged that the leading ideas of some of the most prestigious late-20th-century economists (such as Alan Greenspan and Lawrence Summers in the American government) are outmoded and that a new paradigm of economics is needed. Part I of this essay will focus on two issues which we think it has to […]
Social Origins of the Tent Protests in Israel
It started in mid-July, when Dafni Leef, a Tel Aviv filmmaker, was met with a hike in her rent that she couldn’t afford to pay. Instead of moving to a new apartment, she moved to a tent on Rothschild Boulevard, the city’s sleekest thoroughfare, and set up a Facebook event calling for her compatriots to […]
Continental Day of Solidarity and Action, in Support of Pelican Bay Strikers’ Five Core Demands
Tuesday, August 23rd, 4:30-6:30 PM Join us and make some noise at Governor Cuomo’s Office for THE CONTINENTAL DAY OF SOLIDARITY AND ACTION IN SUPPORT OF THE PELICAN BAY STRIKERS’ 5 CORE DEMANDS On August 23rd, there will be a special Legislative Hearing on Torture and the Solitary Housing Unit at Pelican Bay in […]
Riots by Design: Resisting the London Olympics
In April 2010 I found myself in Montreal for an academic conference. It was my first time there, and as I am wont to do in such a new place, I looked up used bookstores and otherwise roamed around the city. In one such English-language bookstore in the city center I asked the owner if […]
Happy Birthday, Comandante!
Victor Nieto is a cartoonist in Venezuela. His cartoons frequently appear in Aporrea and Rebelión among other sites. var idcomments_acct = ‘c90a61ed51fd7b64001f1361a7a71191’; var idcomments_post_id; var idcomments_post_url; | Print
Order within the Chaos
A Soviet diplomat visiting the US once expressed incredulity toward the political content of mainstream newspapers there. In the USSR, he explained to his American interlocutors, it is necessary to threaten members of the press with torture in order to make them toe the correct political line. In the United States, however, you effect a […]
Europe
“Poor Europe, so far from Latin America, so close to the United States.” Victor Nieto is a cartoonist in Venezuela. His cartoons frequently appear in Aporrea and Rebelión among other sites. Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi (@yoshiefuruhashi | yoshie.furuhashi [at] gmail.com). Cf. Moisis Litsis, “Latin American Lessons for the European Crisis: Interview with Michael A. Lebowitz” […]
The Race with Iran: Saudi Arabia’s Sectarian Card
Four months ago, we returned from a trip to the Middle East and wrote that “the main question engaging people with respect to the Arab Spring is no longer, ‘who’s next,’ but rather how far will Saudi Arabia go in pushing a ‘counter-revolutionary agenda’ across the [region].” Since then, something of a discussion, if not […]
Why Does the New York Times Think It’s So Cool to Beat Up on Seniors?
The New York Times decided to have a special dialogue around a letter to the editor that called on President Obama to take “decisive action” on the economy. Remarkably, only one item on the list of decisive actions, investing in infrastructure, would have any positive impact on jobs and even this would be limited. While […]
The Future of Arab Revolts: Interview with Samir Amin
The way Egyptian scholar and researcher Samir Amin sees it, nothing will be the same as before in the Arab world: protest movements will challenge both the internal social order of Arab countries and their places in the regional and global political chessboard. Hassane Zerrouky: How do you see what’s happening in the Arab […]
Compensate Victims of U.S. Chemical Warfare in Vietnam
Today marks the 50th anniversary of the start of the chemical warfare program in Vietnam without sufficient remedial action by the U.S. government. One of the most shameful legacies of the Vietnam War, Agent Orange continues to poison Vietnam and the people exposed to the chemicals, as well as their offspring. H.R. 2634, the Victims […]
